Posts in Copyright Litigation

Why SCOTUS’ Decision to Sidestep Copyrightability in Google v. Oracle is Problematic for Cases Involving Command Codes

On April 5, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-2 that Google’s copying of 11,500 lines of code from the Java SE Application Programming Interface (API) in creating its Android operating system was a fair use. The ruling ends a decade-long battle between Google and fellow software giant Oracle, which purchased Java developer Sun Microsystems in 2010. It also overturns the Federal Circuit’s 2018 ruling in favor of Oracle, which could have led to a multi-billion dollar award against Google. Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google LLC, 886 F.3d 1179 (Fed. Cir. 2018). A recent decision from a district court in the Western District of Pennsylvania emphasizes the relevance of the Supreme Court decision in Google v. Oracle. While the case predates the Google decision, it brings up some important issues that were sidestepped in the opinion itself but were raised in the arguments presented in briefs and oral arguments for the Google case.

‘Holding States Accountable for Copyright Piracy’: White Paper Says Allen v. Cooper Has Put Creators and Copyright in Jeopardy

Last week, the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society released a paper titled “Holding States Accountable for Copyright Piracy.” The paper was authored by Alden Abbott, Kevin Madigan, Adam Mossoff, Kristen Osenga, and Zvi Rosen and noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that “copyright is the engine of free expression that supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas.” However, citing Allen v. Cooper, the paper explained that a recent Supreme Court decision has jeopardized the U.S. copyright system by “severely limiting” the ability of creators and copyright owners to hold states accountable for infringement by holding that states can escape accountability for intentional acts of infringement by invoking the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The paper further emphasized the injustice that Allen has brought forth, since current law allows states to claim the benefits of copyright protection for their own works and works transferred to them, while escaping liability when they infringe the copyrights of others. Solutions were proposed to level the playing field, including Congress enacting a law validly abrogating state sovereign immunity and waiving sovereign immunity for states acting as market participants.

Copyrights Help SMEs Bring Their Ideas to Market – Especially if They’re Registered

Discussion around intellectual property strategies for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often focus chiefly on patent and trademarks. But the benefits of copyright to a small business should not be underestimated. Copyrights protect the expression of ideas in works that are tangible. Copyrightable subject matter is very broad—all “original works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium” are protected immediately from creation. The U.S. Copyright Office lists these categories as subject to copyright protection: literary works, musical works, performing arts, visual arts, other digital content (including computer software code), motion pictures, photographs, sound recordings, and architectural works. 17 U.S.C. Section 102.

The View from the Court’s 2 Live Crew: Examining the Thomas/Alito Dissent in Google v. Oracle

Most commentators agree that Google v. Oracle is the most important copyright decision of the last 25 years (since Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music). But what if the Court got it wrong?  The Court has not always done well with issues of technology (the Sony v. Universal “Betamax” case being an exception), and the majority decision in Google v. Oracle appears to be more of the same. For many reasons, the powerful dissent from Justices Thomas and Alito may be the better opinion.

The Upshot of Google v. Oracle: An Absurd Ruling Will Lead to Absurd Results

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or so states Newton’s third law of motion. It is safe to say that Newton never met an intellectual property lawyer, and he never had to deal with the whims and fancy of an arbitrary and capricious Supreme Court. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Google v. Oracle, in which the Court ruled that Google’s intentional copying of 11,500 lines of computer code from Oracle was a fair use despite the fact that Google made many tens of billions of dollars in the process, and despite the fact that the record showed that Google consciously chose to copy, rather than independently create, because programmers were already familiar with the 11,500 lines of code they wanted to take.

Stakeholders Speak Out on Google v. Oracle

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling that still has many in the intellectual property world reeling—and not just copyright practitioners. The Court found a way to both accept without examination the Federal Circuit’s holding that the declaring code copied by Google was copyrightable and to reverse the Federal Circuit’s ruling in favor of Oracle, explaining that Google met the fair use exception to copyright law. The Court did this in part by asserting that computer programs are different when it comes to copyright protection, and further from “the core of copyright” than other kinds of works.